I wanted more out of this book. Reminded me of another book group choice a few months back, Twain's Feast. Both good premises, both lacking in execution. Reading this made me want to read more about the history of New York City itself.

Biggest takeaway is that rats are having crazy amounts of sex

Do you love rats? If so, then this book about city warriors with sharp teeth and quick wits is for you. Full of strange, wonderful and disgusting urban tales of rat life in the alleys, drainpipes and bathtubs of NYC.

From another Goodreads reviewer:

"I've always thought that they are completely misunderstood, but after reading this, I became a huge fan of rats; not merely a sympathizer but an all-out enthusiast! They're so cool! He explores where they live, their eating habits, their sex life (very active), and presents them as a reflection of human activity in the city."

Absolutely enjoyed reading this book. A slow read though ...

I am a rat enthusiast. My pet rats have been the most entertaining friends I've ever had and I always can be coaxed out of a bad mood by their antics. They are smart enough and like people enough that they don't really need to live in cages. They like their people and thus come running for playtime and attention. My rats do live in cages, mainly because I have cats, and while some people have cats and rats that can coexist, I don't tempt that fate.

Yes, pet "fancy" rats and the rats talked about in this book are the same species. The only thing different is that the "fancy" rat has been tamed. They still need to be socialized, but they aren't wild.

This book was great. I reference it all the time when I teach volunteers about handling pet rats at our local animal shelter. One of my favorite stories was with the exterminator explaining to a customer that simply getting a cat and locking it downstairs in the basement infested with rats was a really stupid idea. Rats are prey, yes, but oh, they are so very much predators too, and rats in a group are cunning and dangerous when faced with a foe.

My other favorite story was when the rats were scurrying about in the alley and suddenly merged into one line down the middle. EERY! And again, shows how little we know about rats and why they do what they do (they make sounds far too high for us to hear, for example).

I'm not grossed out by seeing rats or mice in urban settings and never did equate them with disease and filth. I know that rats and mice are actually very fastidious in their grooming (and sometimes their owner's grooming as those of us who have had avid "rodentists" will attest), but they can only be as clean as their environment. When their main source of food and habitat are where we throw out our trash, then that's exactly how clean they will be.

Loved this book and would read it again.

Another disappointing read. I'm about ready to stop going to the library, at least in my town. The buyer of natural history books must be a hippy who smoked way too much Grass in the sixties. All the books have this "tree hugging" mentality towards animals. This book is no exception. Like the other books I've recently viewed, the author's observations are based on his own bias towards a particular animal without much fact or science to support it.

And that would have been OK if he could have kept my attention. But he didn't. He was a boring hippy or whatever we call people who insist on anthropomorphizing animals.

I have to agree with other reviewers: This is not a book about rats, a group of whom the author cursorily observed for a few months but made no real effort to understand. His interest is in human-rat relations within cities. His treatment of that topic, while studded with fun facts, also is superficial.

A fairly interesting account of the problem and history of rats in urban civilization, with a large focus on New York City. Fragments of many interesting topics get presented, but they get well diluted with a focus on the authors own shallow observations of rats through night-time forays and relatively unenlightening conversations with pest control professionals. Yes, they are almost impossible to eradicate given all the access to garbage and the many hiding places available to them. Yes, their association with diseases and danger to children from biting is a public health hazard and a perennial political football. Despite much attention to poisoning and trapping efforts, he notes that they are too smart for most traps, can become immune to poisons, and breed so fast that reductions of their population are typically only short term. He doesn�t really get to the bottom of a solution for co-existence or approach what it would take to achieve the necessary denial of food sources. Most of all, I regret his inadequate of coverage of ethological studies on rats. They have a very complex social life, as revealed in naturalistic studies, albeit in laboratory settings. This includes intricate maternal behaviors, dominance hierarchies, and ritualistic territorial behaviors. So much of psychology and brain science is founded on rats that some respect for them as more than vermin to be controlled would be worth emphasizing.

Fascinating study of a rodent we fear. Rats are people too, my friend.

This book is all-rat if you ask me

Robert Sullivan's "Rats: Observations of the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants" is an examination of rats and their interaction with humans - or the other way around. He spends a year studying one particular alley's rat population, speaks with rat experts of all kinds - people who have studied the species, and people who work to 'control' it; searches through writing on rats and their connection to things like the plague. While this book is labeled as natural history, I personally feel it's better called a history - of big city life in general, as well as a history of New York City in particular. If you're interested in the city, you might find more to love and engage with in 'Rats' than I did.

Robert Sullivan writes in a chatty, casual voice which makes for a rather easily digested nonfiction read. In between more serious discussion on plague, increasing rat populations and rat problems as linked with bad housing situation, there's a humorous tone in Sullivan's honest reaction to the species, rats' likeness to humans, or even the interesting facts of rats themselves. The first fifty pages or so are mostly focused on rats as a normal natural history - their food, living, reproduction, and factors that have shaped how we view them. Then there's quite a large part of the book given to discussion surrounding the control of the species through talk with exterminators or pest control operators, trapping or chasing rats, basically dealing with rats through different means - how to get rid of rats, how to minimize their existence, and/or how to kill them. While I wouldn't say this part is less important than the first, I felt the book was too heavily focused on this latter discussion for my taste. I felt there was a missed opportunity of an examination of human's responsibility in the whole rat situation and really - adding a critical discussion of the garbage disposal in big cities like New York would've made this book better, and in my opinion, more valuable. Sullivan repeatedly touches on the garbage problem without really going into any depth, while there's chapter after chapter of the control of rats through poison, traps, etc.

I had a few quibbles too with the way Sullivan writes, which basically bottles down to: too much extra information that bears no real importance to the main topic at hand. It's things like giving background information on a rat expert - where he went to school, what his family structure was like, or what kind of clothes an exterminator was wearing. If these details were directly linked to points in the book that would've been a different matter, for example if the clothes were of a specific kind to - let's say, camouflage when trapping a rat - that would've been fine. At least I couldn't see these kind of details' relevance to the book as a whole, and I found it mostly muddled the many interesting facts it actually did contain. It seemed mostly like such details were given as a tribute to each person who has been valuable within the area of rats studies and work - and while I can understand how an author would want to pay tribute to important actors within the area of study, it doesn't do much for the reader.

On the whole this was a fun and interesting book with rats at its center but is also in many ways a history of New York City. If that sounds like something you're interested in, it might be worth checking out.

Some parts were pretty excellent and informative e.g. The difference between black rats and Norway rats, and Isaac sears, and the foundation of the ASPCA, and some stuff about the prominence of Vermin in civil rights /affordable housing organizing in NYC
And some parts also had me walkin around FiDi and pointing at stuff and saying "big rat nest right here very exciting stuff these wild Norway rats what a stunning urban ecosystem and what a time to be alive!!!"
But then there were other weirdly self indulgent parts (i think it's true that he uses the word "pellicle" twice??) and like footnotes that, between the lines, say I Am An Introspective Author over here and idk man settle down I like your book I'm reading it don't worry